1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric vehicle including a motor using a battery as an energy source, an automatic transmission interposed between the motor and driven wheels, a gear-shifting control means for controlling the gear shifting of the automatic transmission, and a regenerative braking control means for controlling the regenerative braking of the driven wheels based on a braking operation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Such an electric vehicle described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 292603/93 is conventionally known. In that electric vehicle, when a braking operation is carried out during gear shifting of the automatic transmission, only a liquid pressure braking is conducted and a regenerative braking is not conducted, and after completion of the gear shifting, a regenerative braking force is gradually increased, thereby preventing the generation of a shock.
The above prior art vehicle is disadvantageous in that the regenerative braking cannot be conducted during gear shifting and hence, the braking force is decreased during the gear shifting.
Therefore, if the regenerative braking is intended to be conducted to avoid a decrease in braking force, the following problem is encountered. To reduce the gear-shifting shock caused during down-shifting, it is necessary to increase the number of revolutions of the motor after the gear-shifting, compared with that before the gear-shifting, but it is impossible to conduct the regenerative braking while increasing the number of revolutions of the motor. Moreover, the gear-shifting during the regenerative braking is conducted during a speed-reduction and hence, usually this is a down-shifting operation. For this reason, a reduction in braking force due to the absent of the regenerative braking force is frequently produced.